First Fringe Film Festival

Posted on by Thor

I entered my short animated film Greyhound, in the first Fringe Film Festival going on at the Shakes in Orlando Fl. The screening was on my birthday, May 22, 2021 so I felt I had to go. I have not been documenting this years Fringe due to the ongoing pandemic, but in this instance I decided to make an exception.

The screenings were held at eh Play What You Can Stage in an outdoor tent between the Shakes and the Firehouse museum. Pam and I arrived a bit early and I started sketching the venue right away. We both kept our masks on and other audience members were split with about half wearing masks.

It felt awkward finding a seat with a view of the stage. Finding seats with a full six feet of social distancing was impossible. Before this outing, I liked to keep 4 dead body lengths (about 24 feet) between myself and anyone else. It has been more than a year since I have sketched on location. It seemed like everyone was watching us.

An artist, Gabriella Serralles, was on the stage doing Imprompto Digital Paintings which showed up on the screen. I think she was supposed to be doing pet portraits, but I can’t be sure. There were no dogs in the audience. The staging was all wrong however since she was seated right in front of the screen meaning more than half the audience could not get a clear view of shat she was painting on the screen. When the artist was finished, audience members let and a whole new crowd filled the seats.

The first film was a documentary about a metal working artist who sculpts fish. I didn’t pay close attention since I was frantically trying to finish my sketch. My film was next in line. I kind of assumed my film would be last in the lie up so I was surprised. Up until this night the film had only been screened as part of the Ocoee Exhibition at the Orange County Regional History Center. I am sure people saw it but privately with one or two people at a time. It was therefor a surprise when the audience broke into applause after my film screened. Visual artists aren’t used to that kind of spontaneous affirmation.

My second favorite film for the evening was made by Evan and Christie Miga of Miga Made. It had two robots flying a car through a futuristic world reminiscent of Blade Runner. I love how they take the simplest objects and covert them into props of a high tech world.

We didn’t linger when the screenings were over preferring to remove ourselves from the crowds. I didn’t count how many were in the audience, maybe several dozen, but it was more crowded than I would prefer during a pandemic. The seven day average for deaths in Florida was 58 deaths a day the week of the screening. Which is lower than the several hundred who died every day in January of 2021, but still not reassuring.

Yesterday This Was Home: Diving off into the Sunset

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As Sam recalled feeling relieved and vindicated he also remembered still feeling scared because he didn’t know what might happen for the rest of the bus ride through the south.

This scene was a challenge to animate in Adobe Premiere Pro. I had the bus level and the background and figured it would be easy to simply reduce the size of the bus to animate it as it drove away. I had to adjust the scale and position of the but on the X and Y axis. When I first did it the bus was skidding all over the road and I adjusted the three perimeters. I wanted the bus to start at speed and then decelerate as it was further away.

I struggled four quite some time to try and get the three settings to work in sync, but the bus kept swerving all over the road. I finally realized I could move the center point of the bus image to the spot where I wanted the bus to be smallest. When I did that everything fell into place. It was an easy shot to accomplish once I figured out that key element. With the dialogue overlayed and the sound of the bus diving off the shot came alive.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Yesterday This Was Home: They were Trailing Him

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This is the storyboard for the climactic moment of the story. The bus driver got back on the bus with several people trailing him. He walked past the children and sat the white passengers in the seat behind them.

This is the first scene I imagined when I heard the oral history. It is the climactic moment when the children’s rights were acknowledged and upheld. It was the first step towards not allowing the systemic racism to continue.

Animating this scene pushed the memory allowed on my computer to the limits. The computer crashed multiple times as I worked. I had to animate three people walking up the aisle. Part of me wanted to animate each character separately with their own cadence and unique steps, but instead I kept them in a military lock step to simplify the scene and keep the animation quick and simple. I was running out of time. I also had to cut the back ground into separate layers so that the driver and passengers could remain behind the foreground seats and characters. I animated the walks backwards and forwards from this particular stage  of the walk. It is a particularly long scene so I just kept adding steps to the characters walks until the time was allotted. Seating the two passengers was the most challenging aspect and it turned out to be rather fun as they plopped themselves down. I acted out the motions on my own using the living room couch. I have to have sat down on bus seat hundreds of times in m life. I used to ride the bus to NYC every day when I first want to college. That familiarity with riding buses is part of the reason I love this story.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours later until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Yesterday This Was Home: No

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This is a short sweet dialogue scene when the 12 year old Sam says, “No.” It is a defining moment when he refused to be moved to the back of the bus. The dialogue is on 4s, meaning each drawing holds for 4 frames of film. I thought that might look clunky, loosing the persistence of vision that makes animation convincing,  but it looks crisp and fast. I like the way it turned out.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre.

The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Yesterday, This Was Home: the Ocoee Massacre of 1920

Posted on by Thor

Today marks exactly 100 years since the Ocoee Voting Day Massacre.  The Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) has spent three years researching and designing an exhibit about this horrific event.

The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

The following information is taken from the Orange County Regional History Center’s most recent exhibition, Yesterday, This Was Home: the Ocoee Massacre of 1920. For 100 years, the story of the Ocoee Massacre has gone largely untold. It has been subject to intentional obfuscation, lies, misunderstandings, and sensationalism. Memories and perspectives vary, and there are very few reliable source documents to confirm what is factual. If all hearsay, conjecture, conflicting, or contested information is removed, and you only include what most accounts mutually agree upon or what is included in primary source documents, the story is only a few paragraphs long. Though it is missing much nuance and details, this is what can be factually said.

On November 2, 1920, Moses Norman, a Black labor broker, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee, Florida. He was turned away and not allowed to cast his ballot. Later, a group of armed white men came to the home of Norman’s friend, July Perry, another Black labor broker in Ocoee, and violence ensued. Shots rang out and fires were started. Black residents were forced to flee from their homes.

Badly injured by bullet wounds, July Perry was captured by some of the armed men and taken into custody. After receiving medical attention, he was left in a cell at the Orange County Jail in downtown Orlando. According to a State of Florida Coroner’s Inquest that took place on November 3 and 4, 1920, an unidentified white mob overpowered the jailer, taking Perry from his cell.

The lynch mob brutalized Perry, and by November 3, had hanged his body in public view. His body was later moved to Greenwood Cemetery and buried. Moses Norman fled; he was eventually recorded living in New York City. Two men from the white mob were shot and killed, Leo Borgard and Elmer McDaniels, for which Carey Hand Undertaker’s Memorandum exist. Able-bodied ex-servicemen were called from across the region to come to Ocoee and create a perimeter to make sure the event did not continue, also blocking Black residents from returning to their homes. An unknown number of Black people were killed that night and others injured. Three unidentified Black individuals were recorded as being buried in one grave in a Carey Hand Undertaker’s Memorandum.

That night, many Black residents fled Ocoee, never to return. Some stayed but were eventually driven out by the terror of that night as well as subsequent violence over the following years, including dynamite being thrown into their homes and individuals being beaten and threatened. After 1926, there would not be another recorded Black person to reside or own land for any length of time in Ocoee until at least the mid- to late-1970s.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

On the day I went in to sketch, only one couple was in the exhibit space at the same time as me. There as some hand sanitizer at the beginning of the exhibit and I went back to use it each time I used any of the interactive displays.

At the end of the exhibit you can see the animated oral histories I worked on. The screen needs to be touched to play each animated short so be sure to sanitize your hands after you watch. I am glad I went this in an exhibit which is so timely. Today people marching to vote in North Carolina were pepper sprayed and arrested. This isn’t quite as bad as the Ocoee massacre but voter suppression is not a thing of the past.

Yesterday This Was Home: Surprised Driver

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The driver looks surprised and then turns and walks away. This is from the final animation. The drivers badge and shirt is pure white and his tie and the head band on his hat are pure black. That high contrast makes it so a viewer is likely to look at his badge which makes him look like a police officer although he is just the bus driver. hen you are wearing a  badge it makes it tempting to expert authority.

When the driver walked away Sam got really scared, thinking he might be going to get reinforcements.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre.

The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Yesterday This Was Home: Pleeeese!

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“Well I got these white people getting on would you Pleeeeese move?” There is a level of comic desperation in the request.

Animating this scene was fun, being based on the narration, but remodeled into the driver. This is the storyboard and thus not the final design of the driver. In the end he was designed with a chiseled look that was based on a stop sign. His nose, ears and even eyes were designed to look like the octagons of a stop sign. The hand gesture was picked up from a later section of the Zoom interview, but it worked to use the hand gesture to accentuate the word, “Pleeese.” The fact that Sam can laugh about the drivers plight at the time shows his strength of character.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

 

Yesterday This Was Home: I Was Scared

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After pointing out his rights to the driver, Sam felt scared. I cut to an extreme close up that quickly cross dissolved into a negative inverted image of his eyes. As he lamented that Jacksonville was like Mississippi in 1957, I flashed painting being created as negatives. All flash backs of racism of the times was done as these negative images where black is white and white is black.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre.

The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history. Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Jacksonville was like Mississippi

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Jacksonville was like being in Mississippi. After standing up for his rights Sam realized he was in a city with deep rooted racial hatred. Jacksonville was the site of Axe Handle Saturday in which blacks were attacked by a white mob who struck them with ax handles. I painted a negative view of the violence which plays back as a time lapse as the painting forms. Each horrific memory is depicted with this effect. On top of this I composited an old film look with scratches.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Yesterday This Was Home: Close Up

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We cut to Sam’s hand gently pressing down on the girl’s arm as a reminder that they should not move. This shot lasts just two seconds with the narrator saying, “So she wouldn’t move.” I decided I could get away with not animating the scene. In the previous scene I had animated Sam gently pressing down on her arm, so this shot was about the stillness that followed. This was the moment he had predicted and this was his moment to take a stance.

When animating, some scenes would expand a bit from what I had set up in the storyboards while others were cut back a bit for the sake of the pace and timing of the short. It is a fun process with every individual element playing a part. I found I missed animating and it felt good to be in control of every single piece of the puzzle. Music was only used with the introductory tiles cards. The music was titled Traveling Horse by Lobo Loco and it has a blues vibe that I liked. It did not hurt that it was royalty free. The single opening riff opened up the short.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.